Fundamentals: Zell looks for down-on-their-luck companies that he can buy cheaply, and he is not afraid of debt. It’s the anti-Buffett approach: Find poorly managed companies with shoddy balance sheets and you’ll have lots of upside if they turn around. In the late 1960s Zell also pioneered the residential REIT structure, which allowed ordinary investors to buy shares in apartment buildings, bringing Wall Street-style liquidity to the real estate markets. A rare miss: His 2007 purchase of newspaper publisher Tribune Co. ended in bankruptcy.

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